


(When I'm Not With You) I Just Don't Know What to Do

by itsactuallycorrine



Series: Community Appreciation Week 2017 [1]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: (Ok I do but also I don't), Characters Writing Fanfiction, Friend Fiction, Future Fic, Gen, Post-Canon, Troys ships Jeff/Annie, i don't make the rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-21 04:02:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10677279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsactuallycorrine/pseuds/itsactuallycorrine
Summary: When Troy leaves Greendale, he falls into writing stories about what his friends are up to without him.





	(When I'm Not With You) I Just Don't Know What to Do

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Day One of the Community Appreciation Week 2017. Today's fanfic prompt was Favorite Character, which for me equals Troy Barnes, who was the true heart of the show, no matter how many times they try to tell us it's Britta.
> 
> I started with a silly idea of Troy writing fanfic about his friends, but then I kind of had feelings, so I hope you enjoy.
> 
> This does technically exist within the same universe as my J/A story [Playing House](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10551462), although you do not have to read that one first to understand this.

It starts with the purest of intentions.

 

They’re aboard the _Childish Tycoon_ , which is aboard a trailer hitched to some dude’s pickup truck, and they haven’t even seen water yet, but Troy already feels a tug in his chest pulling him back to Greendale.

 

He ran out of questions within an hour and pretends to listen to LeVar’s stories about Patrick Stewart, but his heart isn’t in it.

 

LeVar trails off and gives Troy a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “I know it’s hard leaving everyone, your family. Your home. When I was first out on my own, one thing that always helped me was keeping a journal. Maybe you should try that. Or you could write letters. We won’t always be able to find a place to mail them, but I’m sure your friends and family wouldn’t mind receiving several at a time. Or you could even keep the letters as gifts for everyone when you get home, to show you were thinking about them.”

 

LeVar walks away and Troy thinks about it for a minute, then bolts upright. “Oh, no, my family! I forgot to tell them I was leaving!”

 

One tense, apologetic phone call with his mom later, he spends the remainder of the day thinking about what LeVar has said. When they decide to stop for the night, for dinner and one last chance to sleep in a real bed before hitting the ocean tomorrow, Troy quietly picks at his food across from LeVar and Gabe, the dude Pierce’s attorney hired to haul the boat.

 

It seems dumb, writing down all his thoughts and feelings. Dumb and not manly. Normally, he would just… He frowns as he realizes his normal method for coping would be to talk to Abed. His chest feels tight again and the tell-tale prickling behind his eyes lets him know he’s about to break down crying in front of Geordi La Forge at an Applebee’s in Arizona.

 

He manages to resist the urge by convincing himself he is Clone!Troy and he tucks Real!Troy away deep enough that he’s honestly a little baffled how he ends up standing in the paper supplies aisle at the local Walmart a few hours later.

 

When he starts piling notebooks into his arms, it’s not a conscious decision—it’s a need, a craving to buy all the college-ruled, spiral-bound notebooks he can carry. Which, when he passes the backpacks on his way out, grabs one, and fills that, too, is a _lot_.

 

He gets back to the hotel and spreads them out on the hotel dresser along with all the pens he’d bought, overwhelmed by the sight, but he doesn’t hesitate to grab one before lying on the bed, folding the cover back, and staring at the blank page.

 

It’s then Troy pauses. He hasn’t thought about what to write and somehow writing, “I am sad about leaving my friends,” seems dumb.

 

> Dear Abed

 

He crosses it out as soon as it’s written. In his gut, he knows that’s not right either. He stares at the green ink on the fresh white page and tosses the hotel pen aside, reaching instead for the mechanical pencil he’d bought.

 

> Abed sits alone in the living room, staring at the dark TV.

 

Troy stalls again, staring at the sentence for a long minute, waiting—for what, he doesn’t know. Some feeling that what he’s doing is wrong? But when his gut and conscience stay quiet, he continues.

 

> Annie had gone to bed hours ago, but not before hugging him again. He’d let her because he didn’t feel like explaining that he was Clone!Abed and Troy leaving didn’t affect him as much as she feared. She wouldn’t believe him anyway. She doesn’t understand him, neither Original nor Clone him, not like Troy does.

 

With a pang of guilt, Troy considers removing that last sentence. He thinks Annie and Abed are more alike than either of them will admit… But he leaves it. It’s more in-character that Abed believes he’s too complex for other people to understand.

 

Instead, he trades his mechanical pencil for a purple gel pen he’d bought because it made him smile.

 

> Annie sighs at her Zac Efron poster and wipes a tear from her cheek. She can’t sleep, knowing Abed is out there hurting and she can’t help him. Knowing Troy is gone with no idea when he’s returning. She hugs Ruthie closer and smiles sadly when she thinks about what Troy said earlier, how he missed out on four more years of Annie. She wishes she had the Inspector’s X7 Dimensioniser

 

Troy stops, sighs, and crosses that part out. Annie wouldn’t know the name of the Inspector’s ship, so as much as it pains him… 

 

> She wishes she had the Inspector’s red telephone booth so she could go back in time and tell 18-year-old her that yes, Troy is still the coolest guy they know but they’re only friends and it’s better that way.

 

At some point, he puts down the purple pen and picks up a black BIC for Britta, then a blue clicky ballpoint for Shirley, and a red fountain pen for Jeff.

 

Maybe it’s a little self-indulgent, writing out scenarios where his friends mourn his leaving, but by the time his hand cramps, Troy is smiling and Greendale doesn’t feel so far away.

 

* * *

 

Troy _does_ see the world, and wonders he never dreamed of, and people and places he’ll never forget, but the thing is… traveling around the world by boat is _boring._ There’s just too much water, days passing where they see no one and nothing of note, and only so many of LeVar’s stories he can sit through.

 

He spends more time than he’d like to admit writing his stories about his friends. Not that he’d ever ‘fess up to writing these stories period, especially since they’ve kind of taken on a weird life of their own.

 

As the months go by, he fills notepad after notepad, carefully numbering the covers so he can refer back to re-read certain passages. If watching movies with Abed has taught Troy nothing else, it’s taught him that the devil’s in the details. Which isn’t as scary as Troy thought the first time Abed said it. So, yes, Troy remains mindful of the plot, which continues to grow more intricate.

 

It doesn’t help that he receives email updates every time they make port. Annie writes him a beat-by-beat transcript of their time in Borchert’s Lab and he writes it in. Troy finds out from Britta that Shirley has moved to Atlanta, and he writes it in. He uses Abed’s descriptions of Frankie and Elroy and writes them in. It’s kind of annoying, but he’d rather his stories be as close to canon as possible.

 

When they make port along the eastern coast of Uruguay, the email comes through that shakes Troy. Abed is leaving Greendale. He’s moving to LA. Troy has barely even started his journey and he’s already been planning his triumphant return to Greendale, to Abed. But now, Abed won’t be there, at least not permanently. Home won’t feel like home.

 

LeVar gives a good pep-talk about home being a state of mind and that it might be good for Troy, once he’s found out who he is as an individual, apart from Abed, to continue to live separately.

 

To Troy, the wound is still too fresh and if it weren’t for his pride—and yes, okay, millions of dollars—he would give up now and go back to Greendale to talk Abed out of leaving.

 

But Troy’s never been good at telling Abed ‘no’, and this time is no different. So he just responds with a lackluster _Cool!,_ doesn’t check his email for a few weeks, and starts to write the story he wants to write.

 

Canon is for chumps.

 

* * *

 

The _Childish Tycoon_ docks outside San Diego almost four years after she sailed south from the same port, and Troy disembarks and drops to his knees with loud, cartoonish kisses to the ground.

 

LeVar laughs behind him. “It’d be a shame if we made it all the way around the world with only minor illnesses and injuries and then you contract something fatal as soon as you get home. That probably isn’t the cleanest patch of earth.”

 

Troy sits on his heels, shaking his head. “I don’t even care, man. I’m just so glad to be back.” He chokes up and spreads his arms wide, shouting, “God bless America!” and not even caring when the marina's passers-by stare.

 

Once customs has been dealt with and they've made arrangements for their stuff and the boat, Troy is at a loss as to what comes next.

 

LeVar has no such compunction and sets his hands on Troy’s shoulders. “It has been a pleasure, Mr. Barnes. Truly it has. I’ll contact Mr. Stone and let him know that you have fulfilled the stipulations of your bequeathal. I’m sure he’ll be in touch with you shortly.” He gives Troy a brief hug and pulls back, turning on his heels.

 

Troy stares after him and then jogs to catch up. “Wait… That’s it? Four years on a boat and now you’re leaving? Just like that?”

 

“Well, yes,” LeVar says, like it’s obvious. “I’m sure we’ll keep in touch, but I have a family to get back to.” He pauses and smiles. “As do you. Troy, would you like a ride to LA?”

 

* * *

 

Reuniting with Abed is awkward for approximately thirty seconds. That’s how long it takes for them to fall back in sync, and Troy wraps his arms around his best friend and tries not to cry (too much). It turns out LeVar was right. Greendale is a place; _Abed_ is home and Troy can’t believe he stayed away for almost four years.

 

In between the time Abed spends running errands in his capacity as a PA, he gets Troy caught up on all the most important movie franchises. Before they can start on TV, Troy gets called back to Greendale for a meeting with the executor of Pierce’s will. He also needs to pick up the boxes he had shipped from the marina to his last known address—now Britta’s—if he’s going to continue to stay in LA. And, he admits, he’s getting a little antsy without his writing. The time he spends with Abed is longest he’s gone without updating. He’d honestly thought the compulsion to write might fade once he got home, but… there are still plotholes to be addressed and storylines to resolve and Troy can’t wait to get his notebooks back. 

 

Abed decides to go to Greendale, too, and they persuade Jeff to make a party out of it.

 

“Fine,” he says over Skype, looking far too pleased to match his annoyed tone. “But it’s at Britta’s apartment. I just started renting this house. I’m not about to let you guys trash it.”

 

Britta’s enthusiastic about throwing the party and even convinces Abed and Troy to stay with her while she’s in town. “It gets a little lonely around here,” she says with a shy, sad smile, and Troy can’t tell her no after that.

 

Neither Annie nor Shirley is available to fly in on such short notice—strangely enough for similar reasons: they’re both working on a high-profile case. The only difference is that Annie’s in Indianapolis going by the book working for the FBI, and Shirley’s in Atlanta doing anything but with her intense boss, Mr. Butcher. Troy promises each he’ll come visit soon.

 

When they all pile into Britta’s apartment—which looks different enough from when it was his and Abed’s or his, Abed, and Annie’s that Abed freaks out a little—and they get Annie and Shirley up on Skype on Jeff and Abed’s laptops, he doesn’t think much about tracking down his notebooks. He does get confused a few times, though; one of his friends will tell a story and Troy catches himself just before he corrects them, reminding himself that what he’d written didn’t actually happen.

 

At one point, Britta teases Annie about moving in with her boyfriend.

 

“Britta!” Annie says through a laugh. “I’m thinking about it. But I don’t know if I’m as serious about our relationship as he is.”

 

Shirley chuckles. “Did you and Jeff switch personalities, Annie?” she says in a lilting coo. “Here you are, one foot out the door, and Jeff’s on, what, date three with his accountant?”

 

Troy’s stomach sinks as Jeff smirks and leans his chair back on two legs while he jokes around with Shirley about his new girlfriend but doesn’t deny anything she’s said.

 

Britta must see some of his dismay on his face, because she leans over to quietly ask, “What’s wrong, Troy?”

 

He sighs and slumps down in his chair. “I’m bummed. This doesn’t align with my headcanons at all.”

 

Abed’s head whips around. “What headcanons?”

 

“Oh, uhhhh…” Troy shrugs, looking anywhere but at his friend. “You know, I tried to imagine from time to time what you guys might be up to. Just casually, a stray thought here and there. That’s it. Nothing more.” He sees Abed grow more suspicious and rolls his lips in, forcibly stopping the spew of incriminating words.

 

“What kind of stray thoughts?” a voice says from the doorway, and they all shout and Troy turns to see the dean standing there watching them.

 

“Craig, what the hell?” Jeff asks, dropping all four chair legs to the ground and glaring at the dean. “Where’d you come from?”

 

“One, rude,” Dean Pelton says, planting his hands on his hips. “Two, I came in with Chang.”

 

Everyone shrieks again as Chang walks out of the spare bedroom with an open cardboard box in his arms.

 

“Chang! How’d you even get in?” Britta stomps over and takes the box out of his hands and passes it to Troy. He looks down to find it’s one of his, filled with notepads.

 

“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Chang says with a grin, “and it’s definitely not through the window with the busted lock that's by the fire escape.” He pulls himself up short and then closes his eyes. “Damn it! Stupid, Ben! Stupid!”

 

“I thought you learned your lesson after we caught you sneaking in to use our toilet. This is really creepy.” Annie pauses. “Well, creepy for normal people. For you, it’s about what I’d expect.”

 

When everyone murmurs their agreements, Chang scowls. “Screw you guys! You wanna talk about creepy, why don’t you talk about Troy and his tomes of erotic friend fiction?”

 

The room goes silent, although Troy can barely tell through the roaring in his ears.

 

“Troy,” Shirley starts hesitantly, “what is that crazy man talking about?”

 

He tries to play it off, scoffing and closing the box on his lap, crossing his arms on top. “I have _no_ idea,” he says, then winces when he hears how unconvincing that sounds. “I _have_ no idea. I have no _idea.”_ None of them sound better and now all his friends are looking at him like he’s Chang.

 

“Headcanons,” Abed says to himself and nods at Troy’s box. “You wrote stories. About us while you were gone. And they deviated from what actually happened.” He tilts his head in thought and then smiles. “Cool. Cool cool cool. Can I read them?”

 

Troy freezes in indecision and that gives Britta the advantage when she wrests the box out of his arms. “No! Wait!” he cries, jumping to his feet, but Jeff catches him around his waist when he goes to lunge for the box.

 

“No way! If you wrote about us, I want to read it!” Britta says with glee, tearing the box open and tossing the notebook on top to Abed, who flips it open a few pages in, but doesn’t look down.

 

Instead he looks to Troy, still struggling in Jeff’s hold, but it’s like being in a Chinese finger trap for your whole body and he gives up. He folds against Jeff and nods at Abed, turning away as Abed starts to read out loud.

 

> Abed walks into the study room a few feet in front of Jeff and Annie, and decides to let Jeff have this one. He tells Shirley and Britta, “Jeff and Annie kissed again,” and waits for the floor show to start.

 

Back in the apartment, Britta groans and Jeff drops his arms and walks over a few paces so he can scowl at Troy. Through the speakers of their respective laptops, Annie gasps and Shirley shouts. Abed doesn’t miss a beat, just continues to read.

 

> Everyone reacts exactly like Abed predicted: Annie gasps, Shirley cries out, “WHAAAAAT?!”, and Britta groans.
> 
>  
> 
> Jeff sighs and slumps into his chair, scowling at Abed, who sits in his regular spot. “Abed, you’re old enough that this is no longer tattling, it’s snitching. And do you know what happens to snitches?”
> 
>  
> 
> “They get stitches,” Abed says. “But this isn’t snitching, because this is what you wanted. You wanted to make yourself the common enemy between us so that we’d stop fighting.”
> 
>  
> 
> That sets the girls off again and Jeff drops the cool attitude for a second. “That’s not why—Okay, Abed, you’re onto me. The argument I picked earlier with Shirley was to bring you all together again. You and Annie have been fighting with Shirley and Britta since Troy left. Someone had to do _something,_ before none of us were friends anymore.”
> 
>  
> 
> But Abed tilts his head and listens to what Jeff isn’t saying. He didn’t kiss Annie to make himself the bad guy; that wasn’t part of the plan. Abed glances at Annie, who has her eyes turned away from Jeff while Shirley coos over her.

 

“Wow,” Annie says when Abed falls silent. “This is… a lot weirder than I imagined it would be.”

 

Jeff and Shirley nod.

 

“I told you guys,” Chang calls from where he and the dean are sacked out on the couch, not included in the party but not _not_ included either. He scoffs. “And they think I’m the mentally ill one.”

 

“Aw, I think it’s kind of sweet,” Britta says, bumping her shoulder into Troy’s. “You missed us.”

 

“Of course I did. But the stories… they helped.” Troy shrugs.

 

“That’s nice,” Shirley says, but her tone is laced with confusion. “Troy, how many of these, um, stories did you actually write?”

 

“I mean… it’s really one continuous story. I just kept adding onto it.”

 

“There are like three boxes of those notebooks,” Chang adds like it’s nothing.

 

Abed flips the cover shut and sees the black “1” carefully written in the top right corner of the front, and looks up at Troy, the question clear on his face.

 

“Thirty-two,” Troy answers, trying hard to ignore the concerned glances being passed among everyone else. “There are thirty-two notebooks.”

 

Abed’s eyes gleam and he settles into his chair, flipping back to the first page.

 

"Troy, wasn't the entire point of this for you to stop defining yourself by us? By Abed?" Jeff asks. 

 

Troy nods. "But I did. I might have been writing about you, but it helped me realize that I actually really like writing. I wouldn't have known that if I was here, because I would've been worried about what everyone thought," he says pointedly. 

 

The rest of the group avoids his eyes and moves on, swerving around the entire topic of Troy’s stories, but Abed stays in that spot the rest of the night, steadily plowing through the notebooks in the box next to him.

 

* * *

 

When Troy wakes up the next morning, Abed is still sitting at Britta’s table with the notebooks spread out in front of him and the final one, with a big black “32” on its red cover, is clutched in his hand. It’s not really that surprising—by the time Jeff left around 2 and Troy and Britta shuffled off to bed, Abed had been starting notebook 9.

 

“I read them all,” Abed says before Troy can ask, and only the bags under his eyes reflect how tired he must be.

 

“Oh.” Troy sways in place a bit and rubs the back of his neck, strangely nervous. “And?”

 

“I’m kind of mad they’re not true.” Abed smiles a little with the admission and Troy matches it with his own grin of relief. “Especially the part about the kidnapping and Chang’s trial,” he continues, going section by section through the plot.

 

At some point, Troy starts to sort through the notebooks to jot down some of Abed’s feedback in the margins, nodding or arguing, but overjoyed at sharing this work with someone. With Abed.

 

Abed ramps down a little as he moves away from the larger action-driven storyline. “I was surprised to see that you pursued the romance storyline between Jeff and Annie. I thought you didn’t like romance.”

 

Troy sighs. “I don’t know, man. When I first decided to write it in, it was mostly to keep Jeff away from Britta. I’m not still hung up on her,” he clarifies quickly when Abed raises a brow. “I just didn’t want to think about her and Jeff hooking up or, worse, falling in love. And, you know, there _is_ a kissing history between Jeff and Annie. It made sense.” He shakes his head. “I really don’t know what happened, but by the third notebook, I was _invested_ in a way I never felt—about their friendship or otherwise—at Greendale.” He sighs again, sinking further into his chair. “I can’t believe those two didn’t work it out.”

 

“They might just yet.”

 

Troy smiles. “You really think so?”

 

Abed nods and sets the final notepad aside. "Being a PA was fun for a while, but I really thought I'd have moved on to something else already." After a few quiet minutes, he asks, “Do you want to start a production company with me? I don’t have any start-up capital but with my contacts and vision, and your money…”

 

“Yeah, man,” Troy says, clearing his throat over the knot that’s built up. “Let’s do it. Trobed Productions. Do you have a project in mind?”

 

Abed points at the assorted notepads. “We should take these stories, change the names, retool the plot a little, and make this a high-concept television series. One that’ll be critically adored and find a passionate online following, but will largely go misunderstood by the general network-TV viewing audience.”

 

A familiar warm trickle fills his sinuses, and Troy gets to the tissues just before the blood flows out of his nose and down into his mouth. He shrugs it off when Abed tilts his head and stares at him, brows raised. “Ignore this. I’m still acclimating to how dry it is being landlocked.” He sniffs and takes a chance on pulling the tissue away long enough to share a special handshake with Abed. “Let’s do it.”


End file.
